This article was writtetn by Seth Borenstein, Melina Walling, and Anton L. Delgado, and was published in the Globe & Mail on November 22, 2025.
Activists participate in a demonstration outside where negotiations are taking place at the COP30 UN Climate Summit in Belem, Brazil, on Friday.
Several nations held firm Friday in blocking proposals in the final stages of this year’s UN climate talks because they failed to explicitly cite the burning of fuels such as oil, gas and coal as causes of global warming, and the talks appeared certain to sprawl past a midnight deadline.
Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, a top negotiator for Panama, said the decades long United Nations process risks “becoming a clown show” for the omission. His nation was among 36 to object to a proposal from the conference president, André Corrêa do Lago of host Brazil, because it doesn’t provide an explicit guide map for the world to transition away from fossil fuels, nor to strengthen climate fighting plans submitted earlier this year.
Before nations moved into high-level negotiations behind closed doors, Mr. Monterrey Gomez warned that talks were on “the verge of collapse.”
A few hours later, he said nothing much had changed.
Mr. do Lago started the day telling diplomats he thought they “are very close” to doing what they set out to do when they started meeting a week ago. When the allcountry talks fizzled, Mr. do Lago pivoted to bringing in smaller pairings of negotiating teams for meeting in his office.
“I would expect there needs to be another text,” veteran observer and former chief German climate negotiator Jennifer Morgan said late Friday afternoon. “I think there’s quite a lot of work to be done.”
The Brazilian proposals – also called texts – came on the heels of a fire on Thursday that briefly spread through pavilions of the conference known as COP30 on the edge of the Amazon. No one was seriously hurt but the fire meant that a day of work was largely lost.
“The problem is we’re 24 hours behind schedule,” said David Waskow, international climate director for the World Resources Institute.
The European Union said flatly that it wouldn’t accept the text. EU Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra reminded negotiators that countries had gathered at the edge of the Amazon to bring down emissions and transition away from fossil fuels.
“Look at the text. Look at it. None of it is in there. No science. No global stocktake. No transitioning away. But instead, weakness,” Mr. Hoekstra said in a closeddoor meeting of negotiators, according to a transcript provided by the EU.
“Under no circumstances are we going to accept this. And nothing that is even remotely close, and I say it with pain in my heart, nothing that is remotely close to what is now on the table.”
This article was written by Molly Quell and was published in the Globe & Mail on December 2, 2024.
A boy wades through water flooding over a sea wall in Serua Village, Fiji. In the decade up to 2023, sea levels have risen by a global average of around 4.3 centimetres, with parts of the Pacific rising higher still.
The top United Nations court will take up the largest case in its history on Monday, when it opens two weeks of hearings into what countries worldwide are legally required to do to combat climate change and help vulnerable nations fight its devastating impact.
After years of lobbying by island nations who fear they could simply disappear under rising sea waters, the UN General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice last year for an opinion on “the obligations of States in respect of climate change.”
“We want the court to confirm that the conduct that has wrecked the climate is unlawful,” Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, who is leading the legal team for the Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, told the Associated Press.
In the decade up to 2023, sea levels have risen by a global average of around 4.3 centimetres, with parts of the Pacific rising higher still. The world has also warmed 1.3 C since pre-industrial times because of the burning of fossil fuels.
Vanuatu is one of a group of small states pushing for international legal intervention in the climate crisis.
“We live on the front lines of climate change impact. We are witnesses to the destruction of our lands, our livelihoods, our culture and our human rights,” Vanuatu’s climate change envoy Ralph Regenvanu told reporters ahead of the hearing.
Any decision by the court would be non-binding advice and unable to directly force wealthy nations into action to help struggling countries. Yet it would be more than just a powerful symbol since it could serve as the basis for other legal actions, including domestic lawsuits.
From Monday, The Haguebased court will hear from 99 countries and more than a dozen intergovernmental organizations over two weeks. It’s the largest lineup in the institution’s nearly 80-year history.
Last month at the United Nations’ annual climate meeting, countries cobbled together an agreement on how rich countries can support poor countries in the face of climate disasters. Wealthy countries have agreed to pool together at least US$300-billion a year by 2035 but the total is short of the US$1.3-trillion that experts, and threatened nations, said is needed.
Fifteen judges from around the world will seek to answer two questions: What are countries obliged to do under international law to protect the climate and environment from human-caused greenhouse gas emissions? And what are the legal consequences for governments where their acts, or lack of action, have significantly harmed the climate and environment?
This article was written by Melina Walling, Seth Borenstein, Michael Phillis, and Sibi Arasu, and was published in the Globe & Mail on November 25, 2024.
Members attend a closing plenary session Sunday at the COP29 summit in Baku, Azerbaijan. Developing countries were asking for US$1.5-trillion, but still saw an increase from the previous deal.
Representatives of some developing countries blast COP29 agreement as unfair, accuse rich countries of stinginess
United Nations climate talks adopted a deal to inject at least US$300-billion annually in humanity’s fight against climate change, aimed at helping developing countries cope with the ravages of global warming intense negotiations.
The US$300-billion will go to developing countries that need the cash to wean themselves off the coal, oil and gas that causes the globe to overheat, as well as adapting to future warming and paying for the damage caused by climate change’s extreme weather. It’s not near the full amount of US$1.3-trillion that developing countries were asking for, but it’s three times the deal of US$100-billion a year from 2009 that is expiring. Some delegations said this deal is headed in the right direction, with hopes that more money flows in the future.
But it was not quite the agreement by consensus that these meetings usually operate with and some developing countries were livid about being ignored.
COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev gavelled the deal into acceptance before any country had a chance to speak. When they did, they blasted him for being unfair to them, the deal for not being enough and the world’ s rich countries for being too stingy.
“It’s a paltry sum,” Indian negotiator Chandni Raina said, repeatedly saying how India objected to rousing cheers. “I’m sorry to say we cannot accept it.”
She told the Associated Press that she has lost faith in the United Nations system.
AFTER A DEAL, COUNTRIES EXPRESS THEIR DISCONTENT
A long line of countries agreed with India and piled on, with Nigeria’s Nkiruka Maduekwe, chief executive officer of the National Council on Climate Change, calling the deal an insult and a joke.
“I’m disappointed. It’s definitely below the benchmark that we have been fighting forfor so long,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey, of the Panama delegation. He noted that a few changes, including the inclusion of the words “at least” before the number US$300-billion and an opportunity for revision by 2030, helped push them to the finish line. “Our heart goes out to all those nations that feel like they were walked over,” he said.
The final package pushed through “does not speak or reflect or inspire confidence,” India’s Ms. Raina said.
“We absolutely object to the unfair means followed for adoption,” Ms. Raina said. “We are extremely hurt by this action by the president and the secretariat.”
Speaking for nearly 50 of the poorest countries of the world, Evans Davie Njewa of Malawi was more mild, expressing what he called reservations with the deal. And the Alliance of Small Island States’ Cedric Schuster said he had more hope “that the process would protect the interests of the most vulnerable” but nevertheless expressed tempered support for the deal.
UN Secretary-General António Gut err es said in a post on X that he hoped for a “more ambitious outcome.” But he said the agreement “provides a base on which to build.”
SOME SEE DEAL AS RELIEF AFTER TOUGH TALKS
There were somewhat satisfied parties, with the European Union’s Wopke Hoekstra calling it a new era of climate funding, working hard to help the most vulnerable. But activists in the plenary hall could be heard coughing over Mr. Hoekstra’s speech in an attempt to disrupt it.
Eamon Ryan, Ireland’s Environment Minister, called the agreement “a huge relief.”
“It was not certain. This was tough,” he said. “Because it’s a time of division, of war, of [a] multilateral system having real difficulties, the fact that we could get it through in these difficult circumstances is really important.”
UN Climate Change’s executive secretary, Simon Stiell, called the deal an “insurance policy for humanity,” adding that like insurance, “it only works if the premiums are paid in full, and on time.”
The deal is seen as a step toward helping countries on the receiving end create more ambitious targets, due early next year, to limit or cut emissions of heattrapping gases. It’ s part of the plan to keep cutting pollution with new targets every five years, which the world agreed to at the UN talks in Paris in 2015.
The Paris Agreement set the system of regular ratcheting up climate fighting ambition as away to keep warming under 1.5 degrees above preindustrial levels. The world is already at 1.3 degrees and carbon emissions keep rising.
HOPES THAT MORE CLIMATE CASH WILL FOLLOW
Countries also anticipate that this deal will send signals that help drive funding from other sources, such as multilateral development banks and private sources. That was always part of the discussion at these talks – rich countries didn’t think it was realistic to only rely on public funding sources – but poor countries worried that if the money came in loans instead of grants, it would send them sliding further backward into debt that they already struggle with.
“The $300-billion goal is not enough, but is an important down payment toward a safer, more equitable future,” said World Resources Institute president Ani Dasgupta. “This deal gets us off the starting block. Now the race is on to raise much more climate finance from a range of public and private sources, putting the whole financial system to work behind developing countries’ transitions.”
And even though it’s far from the needed US$1.3-trillion, it’s more than the US$250-billion that was on the table in an earlier draft of the text, which outraged many countries and led to a period of frustration and stalling over the final hours of the summit.
OTHER DEALS AGREED AT COP29
The several different texts adopted early Sunday morning included a reference to last year’s Global Stocktake approved in Dubai. Last year there was a battle about first-of-its-kind language on getting rid of oil, coal and natural gas, but instead it called for a transition away from fossil fuels. The latest talks only referred to the Dubai deal, but did not explicitly repeat the call for a transition away from fossil fuels.
Countries also agreed on the adoption of Article 6, creating markets to trade carbon-pollution rights, an idea that was set up as part of the Paris Agreement to help countries work together to reduce climate-causing pollution. Part of that was a system of carbon credits, allowing countries to put planet-warming gases in the air if they offset emissions elsewhere. Backers said a UN-backed market could generate up to an additional US$250-billion a year in climate financial aid.
Despite its approval, carbon markets remain a contentious plan because many experts say the new rules adopted don’t prevent misuse, don’t work and give big polluters an excuse to continue spewing emissions.
“What they’ve done essentially is undermine the mandate to try to reach 1.5,” said Tamra Gilbertson, climate-justice program coordinator with the Indigenous Environmental Network.
With this deal wrapped up, many have eyes on next year’s talks in Belem, Brazil.
UN summit pact to help developing nations draws bitter reaction
This article was written by the Associated Press and was published in the Toronto Star on November 24, 2024.
Joanna MacGregor, senior advisor for UN climate change, talks with Simon Stiell, UN climate chief, left, at Sunday’s COP29 summit.
United Nations climate talks adopted a deal to inject at least $300 billion (U.S.) annually in humanity’s fight against climate change, aimed at helping developing nations cope with the ravages of global warming in tense negotiations.
The $300 billion will go to developing countries who need the cash to wean themselves off the coal, oil and gas that causes the globe to overheat, adapt to future warming and pay for the damage caused by climate change’s extreme weather. It’s not near the full amount of $1.3 trillion that developing countries were asking for, but it’s three times a deal of $100 billion a year from 2009 that is expiring. Some delegations said this deal is headed in the right direction, with hopes that more money flows in the future.
But it was not quite the agreement by consensus that these meetings usually operate with and some developing nations were livid about being ignored.
COP29 president Mukhtar Babayev gavelled the deal into acceptance before any nation had a chance to speak. When they did, they blasted him for being unfair to them, the deal for not being enough and the world’s rich nations for being too stingy.
“It’s a paltry sum,” India negotiator Chandni Raina said, repeatedly saying how India objected to rousing cheers. “I’m sorry to say we cannot accept it.”
She told The Associated Press that she has lost faith in the United Nations system.
A long line of nations agreed with India and piled on, with Nigeria’s Nkiruka Maduekwe, CEO of the National Council on Climate Change, calling the deal an insult and a joke.
“I’m disappointed. It’s definitely below the benchmark that we have been fighting for so long,” said Juan Carlos Monterrey, of the Panama delegation.
He noted that a few changes, including the inclusion of the words “at least” before the number $300 billion and an opportunity for revision by 2030, helped push them to the finish line.
“Our heart goes out to all those nations that feel like they were walked over,” he said.
The final package pushed through “does not speak or reflect or inspire confidence,” India’s Raina said.
“We absolutely object to the unfair means followed for adoption,” Raina said. “We are extremely hurt by this action by the president and the secretariat.”
Speaking for nearly 50 of the poorest nations of the world, Evans Davie Njewa of Malawi was more mild, expressing what he called reservations with the deal. And the Alliance of Small Island States’ Cedric Schuster said he had more hope “that the process would protect the interests of the most vulnerable” but nevertheless expressed tempered support for the deal.
UN SecretaryGeneral António Guterres said in a post on X that he hoped for a “more ambitious outcome.”
But he said the agreement “provides a base on which to build.”
There were somewhat satisfied parties, with European Union’s Wopke Hoekstra calling it a new era of climate funding, working hard to help the most vulnerable.
But activists in the plenary hall could be heard coughing over Hoekstra’s speech in an attempt to disrupt it.
Eamon Ryan, Ireland’s environment minister, called the agreement “a huge relief.”
“It was not certain. This was tough,” he said. “Because it’s a time of division, of war, of (a) multilateral system having real difficulties, the fact that we could get it through in these difficult circumstances is really important.”
“I’m disappointed. It’s definitely below the benchmark that we have been fighting for so long … Our heart goes out to all those nations that feel like they were walked over.”
This article was written by the Associated Press and was published in the Globe & Mail on Nov 23, 2024.
A new draft of a deal on cash to curb and adapt to climate change released Friday at the United Nations climate summit pledged US$250-billion annually by 2035 from wealthy countries to poorer ones. The amount pleases the countries who will be paying, but not those on the receiving end.
It’s more than double the previous goal of US$100-billion a year set 15 years ago, but less than a quarter of the number requested by developing nations struck hardest by extreme weather. But rich nations say it’s realistic and about the limit of what they can do.
It struck a sour note for developing countries, which see conferences like this one as their biggest hope to pressure rich nations because they aren’t part of meetings of the world’s biggest economies.
“Our expectations were low, but this is a slap in the face,” said Mohamed Adow, from Power Shift Africa. “No developing country will fall for this. They have angered and offended the developing world.”
The proposal came down from the top, the presidency of UN climate talks – called COP29 – in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev, Azerbaijan’s Deputy Foreign Minister, said the presidency hopes to push countries to go higher than US$250-billion, saying “it doesn’t correspond to our fair and ambitious goal. But we will continue to engage with the parties.”
Brazil responded with a higher number taken from a report by an expert financial panel appointed by the United Nations Secretary-General. Brazil Environment Minister Marina Silva proposed US$300-billion a year until 2035 when the number would jump to US$390-billion a year.
Brazil is set to host next year’s COP30. When asked whether lack of an ambitious agreement at COP29 would put Brazil in a bad position next year, Ms. Silva said the consequences were bigger than that.
“More than just hurting COP30, it will hurt the life of all of us and hurt the conditions that give us life on Earth,” she said.
Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare, a veteran negotiator, said the presidency’s figure is likely just the first of two or three proposals.
“We’re in for a long night and maybe two nights before we actually reach agreement on this,” Mr. Hare said.
Just like last year’s initial proposal, which was soundly rejected, this plan is “empty” on what climate analysts call “mitigation” or efforts to reduce emissions from or completely quit coal, oil and natural gas, Mr. Hare said.
Tina Stege, Marshall Islands’ climate envoy, called the drafts “shameful.”
“It is incomprehensible that … [we] receive only sympathy and no real action from wealthy nations,” she said.
The Least Developed Countries negotiating group said they were “deeply concerned” about the draft deal. “It dilutes the existing commitments of the developed countries and does not reflect the ambition needed for global climate action,” their statement said.
“It is a disgrace that despite full awareness of the devastating climate crises afflicting developing nations and the staggering costs of climate action – amounting to trillions – developed nations have only proposed a meagre $250-billion per year,” said Harjeet Singh of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Experts put the need at US$1.3-trillion for developing countries to cover damages resulting from extreme weather, help those nations adapt to a warming planet and wean themselves from fossil fuels, with more generated by each country internally.
The amount in any deal reached at COP negotiations – often considered a “core” – will then be mobilized or leveraged for greater climate spending. But much of that means loans for countries drowning in debt. Iskander Erzini Vernoit, director of Moroccan climate think-tank Imal Initiative for Climate and Development, said “the EU and the U.S. and other developed countries cannot claim to be committed to the Paris Agreement while putting forward such amounts.”
Vulnerable countries seek $1.3 trillion to cope with climate crisis
This article was written by the Associated Press and was published in the Toronto Star on November 21, 2024.
Activists call for progress on a climate financing deal Wednesday at the COP29 United Nations Climate Summit in Baku, Azerbaijan.
With time running down, negotiators at the United Nations annual climate talks on Wednesday remained mired in the maze of a trilliondollar money problem, turning to host Azerbaijan to lead the way to daylight with a promised map to be released in the dark of night.
Vulnerable nations are seeking $1.3 trillion (U.S.) to deal with damage from climate change and to adapt to that change, including building out their own cleanenergy systems. Experts agree that at least $1 trillion is called for, but both figures are far more than the developed world has so far offered.
Negotiators are fighting over three big parts of the issue: How big the numbers are, how much is grants or loans, and who contributes.
After 10 days of talks, the host presidency of the talks promised a draft proposal around midnight, which they acknowledged will be far from final and have many decisions still to be made. But it’s something, a clear step forward, said lead negotiator Yelchin Rafiyev.
German special climate envoy Jennifer Morgan late Wednesday afternoon put the onus on the COP29 presidency.
“Much is really now in the presidency’s hands and the options that they will put in front of us, the text that will come out,” Morgan said. “I think the options can help shift us into the fast lane towards a green and prosperous future or mire us in a fight about lowest common denominators.”
And the key to a solution is one word, Morgan said: Trust.
“The most critical currency right now is trust — trust in the presidency and trust between and among parties,” Morgan said.
‘The science on climate hasn’t changed and the energy transition that’s underway hasn’t stopped’
This article was written by Sheena Goodyear and was published by CBC on November 13, 2024.
Catherine McKenna, chair of the United Nation’s net-zero working group, says she wishes COP29 were being held in a different country under different circumstances, but that world leaders must not ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater.’ (Seth Wenig/The Associated Press)
As It Happens 6:43
Trump win no excuse to back out of climate commitments, Catherine McKenna says from COP29
The world must work together to fight climate change regardless of who’s in the White House, former environment minister Catherine McKenna said Wednesday at the United Nations climate conference.
McKenna is at at the UN Conference of Parties’ 29th annual climate conference, better known as COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan.
BBC News reported that a senior member of Azerbaijan’s COP29 team was caught on film using the conference to arrange potential deals for fossil fuel expansion. In a speech to world leaders, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev called his country’s oil reserves “a gift of the God.”
What’s more, it’s all taking place in the aftermath of the U.S. presidential election, which saw the pro-fossil fuel Republican Donald Trump beat Democrat Kamala Harris.
Trump — who campaigned on slogans such as “Drill, baby, drill!” and “Frack, frack, frack!” — has promised to boost his country’s fossil fuel production. His transition team is already working on a plan to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, a global climate treaty negotiated at the 2015 COP conference, reports the New York Times.
Nevertheless, McKenna says delegates are moving forward. She’s there in her role as chair of the UN’s net-zero working group, and will present a report on Thursday examining where corporations stand on their climate commitments.
Here is part of her conversation As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
What is the energy and mood like [at COP29]?
Look, I mean, it’s hard. I’m not going to sugarcoat it with the Trump administration. We have seen this story before. I was minister when Trump was elected before. So it’s not new. It does take a little bit of the energy out of the room.
Although, I was just at an event with Secretary [Yana] Garcia from California, head of their environmental agency, and California’s all in, and they’re the fifth largest economy in the world. So, I mean, I think people are getting on with things.
Just because there’s a new government in the United States federally, it doesn’t mean that the climate crisis isn’t accelerating. At the same time, the energy transition is well underway.
We don’t have a choice but to move forward.
Duration7:33Delegates at COP29, the annual UN climate conference, will have to navigate the scrutiny of another petro-state host in Azerbaijan and the expected retreat of U.S. climate policy under a re-elected Donald Trump. CBC’s international climate correspondent Susan Ormiston breaks down the hurdles standing between COP and meaningful climate action.
As you move forward, and given what happened in the U.S. election and what the president-elect has said about this issue, how do you calibrate or change the conversations you’re having in those rooms?
Not one country can stop progress. And the real difference, actually, between this time and last time is the energy transition had not accelerated the way we’ve seen it now.
Fossil fuels are going to peak by 2030, and this is [according to] the International Energy Agency. And why is that? It’s largely because China has super scaled electric vehicles … [and] the renewable energy revolution is well underway. It’s cheaper actually to go forward with renewable energy than it is with other options, especially wind and solar.
It would be better, for sure, to have a Harris administration than a Trump administration. But the science on climate hasn’t changed and the energy transition that’s underway hasn’t stopped.
Your former cabinet colleague, former finance minister Bill Morneau, [told CTV News] he’s not convinced now is … the right time for the Trudeau government to be setting an emissions cap on oil and gas companies, given what the president-elect has said his priorities are and the importance of energy security. How do you respond?
Well, we’re in a climate crisis, so that’s No. 1.
No. 2, the oil sands — because that’s really what we’re talking about — has its own net-zero target, but its emissions continue to go up. And it made massive historic record profits, largely off of the back of an illegal war, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and gave that money back to shareholders largely outside of Canada, and then invested in new fossil fuel infrastructure.
If they were able to reduce their emissions in the way that they said they would do, like every single other sector in Canada, then there wouldn’t be a need to do this. They haven’t. In fact, they’re greenwashing.
That’s what my report was to the [UN] secretary general. It was about what does it mean when you say “net zero”? What are the criteria and standards? Your emissions need to go down. Your money needs to go to clean [energy].
Oil and gas has not done it.
I think Canadian taxpayers should be quite outraged, to be honest. We’re giving massive subsidies [to the oil sands]. And in good times, when they make a lot of money, they’re not reinvesting that money to reduce their own emissions.
[COP host nations] are often controversial. Last year was Dubai. This year, Azerbaijan, as we said, is a nation that attributes more than 90 per cent of its export revenues to oil and gas. Are selections like that smart or a mistake?
For the regular public, I’m sure they think, what the heck are you doing here? It’s not also just in terms of we’re in a petrol state, it’s also in terms of massive human rights abuses.
But that’s not how they choose venues, unfortunately. It’s not like the UN actually decides this. It’s the whole international community. And in this case, which is actually very infuriating … Russia vetoed any other location, and that’s why we ended up here in Azerbaijan.
Having said that, I mean, you can’t throw the baby with the bathwater. We need the international community, everyone, to come together.
Someone said this to me, that imagine you’re a small island developing state. If you don’t have a COP to go to, when will anyone hear from you about the impacts of climate change on your community? And some of these countries will be underwater if we go above 1.5°C [over pre-industrial levels], which is the Paris Agreement target.
I can understand why people are cynical. I can tell you that I wasn’t delighted. You know, next year in Brazil, and Brazil’s been a great ally on climate change, so I think that’s great.
But the reality is we don’t have any other option. We need the whole world to come together. And so that’s why I’m here.
People walk near the venue of the United Nations COP29 conference Thursday in Baku. The previous annual finance goal of $100-billion expires this year.
Climate summit struggled to make progress Thursday on how to raise up to $1-trillion annually for vulnerable countries
Geopolitics overshadow UN climate summit, as Argentina walks away
This article was written by Kate Abnett, Olesya Astakhova, and Virginia Furness, and was published in the Globe & Mail on November 15, 2024.
Countries at the COP29 summit tried to make progress on how to raise up to US$1-trillion in climate finance for the world’s most vulnerable, as political tensions overshadowed the talks and Argentina on Thursday pulled its delegation from Baku.
The success of this year’s UN climate summit hinges on whether countries can agree on a new finance target for richer countries, development lenders and the private sector to deliver each year. Developing countries need at least US$1-trillion annually by the end of the decade to cope with climate change, economists told the UN talks.
Many countries have said that money is essential to their setting ambitious climate goals ahead of next year’s COP30 in Brazil.
But reaching a deal could be tough at this year’s summit, where the mood has been soured by public disagreements and pessimism about shifts in global politics.
Donald Trump’s presidential election win has cast the United States’ future role in climate talks into doubt, and tension between developed and developing countries has bubbled to the surface on the main stages and in negotiating rooms.
“Parties must remember that the clock is ticking,” COP29 lead negotiator Yalchin Rafiyev told a news conference.
The previous annual finance goal of US$100-billion expires this year. But wealthy countries only met the pledge in full starting in 2022.
Early Thursday, a report from the Independent High-Level Expert Group on Climate Finance said the target annual figure would need to rise to at least US$1.3-trillion a year by 2035 if countries fail to act now.
Behind the scenes, negotiators are working on draft texts, but early stage documents published by the UN climate body show views around the table still diverge widely.
Many Western governments arrived in Baku reluctant to pledge big sums.
The likely withdrawal of the United States from any future funding deal will raise pressure on delegates to find other ways to secure the needed funds.
Among them are the world’s multilateral development banks such as the World Bank, funded by the richer countries and in the process of being reformed so they can lend more.
Ten of the largest have said they would plan to increase their climate finance by roughly 60 per cent to $120-billion a year by 2030, with at least an extra $65billion from the private sector.
On Thursday Zakir Nuriyev, head of the Association of Banks of Azerbaijan, said the country’s 22 banks would commit nearly US$1.2-billion to finance projects that help Azerbaijan transition to a low-carbon economy.
So far the conference – which many global leaders decided to skip altogether – has been marked more by division than unity.
Argentina’s abrupt departure on Thursday followed an order from Buenos Aires.
The country’s presidential spokesperson said the move would allow Gerardo Werthein, the new Foreign Affairs Minister, to “re-evaluate the situation, reflect on the position.”
The minister is “withdrawing the delegation in virtue of a whole reform the minister is going to do. There’s not much else to say,” the spokesperson, Manuel Adorni, told a news conference in Buenos Aires.
Argentina’s President Javier Milei, who previously has called global warming a hoax, was due this week to meet Mr. Trump, also a climate-change denier.
When asked whether Argentina would withdraw from the Paris Agreement, Ana Lamas, undersecretary for environment for Argentina, who led the country’s delegation at COP29, told Reuters: “We are only withdrawing from COP29.”
Observers criticized the withdrawal by Argentina’s right-wing government, and said it could hurt the country’s hopes of raising future climate cash.
“It will make Argentina, which has been an important voice on environment, look less credible and less reliable in international markets and the international community,” said Oscar Soria, head of civil society group Top Social.
Azerbaijan’s COP29 Presidency described it as a matter between Argentina and the United Nations.
A negotiator from a developed country said they had seen no signs so far that any other countries would follow Argentina’s lead and walk out.
A day earlier, French Climate Minister Agnès Pannier-Runach-er cancelled her trip to COP29 after Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev accused France of “crimes” in its overseas territories in the Caribbean.
France and Azerbaijan have long had tense relations because of Paris’s support of Azerbaijan’s rival Armenia. This year, Paris accused Baku of meddling and abetting violent unrest in New Caledonia.
“Regardless of any bilateral disagreements, the COP should be a place where all parties feel at liberty to come and negotiate on climate action,” European Union Climate Commissioner Wopke Hoekstra said in response, in a post on X.
That followed Mr. Aliyev’s opening speech at the conference that accused the United States and EU of hypocrisy for lecturing countries on climate change while remaining major consumers and producers of fossil fuels.
China, U.S. could make things worse; Argentina pulls out of talks
This article was written by the Associated Press and was published by CBC News on November 14, 2024.
A wildfire burns in Jennings Creek, N.J., as world leaders gather for climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, on the other side of the world. Drought conditions are considered a major factor contributing to wildfires in the eastern U.S. (New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection via The Associated Press)
For the third straight year, efforts to fight climate change haven’t lowered projections for how hot the world is likely to get — even as countries gather for another round of talks to curb warming, according to an analysis Thursday.
At the United Nations climate talks, hosted in Baku, Azerbaijan, nations are trying to set new targets to cut emissions of heat-trapping gases and figure out how much rich nations must pay to help the world with that task.
But Earth remains on a path to be 2.7 C warmer than pre-industrial times, according to Climate Action Tracker, a group of scientists and analysts who study government policies and translate that into projections of warming.
If emissions are still rising and temperature projections are no longer dropping, people should wonder if the United Nations climate negotiations — known as COP — are doing any good, said Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare.
“There’s an awful lot going on that’s positive here, but on the big picture of actually getting stuff done to reduce emissions … to me it feels broken,” Hare said.
The world has already warmed 1.3 C above pre-industrial times. That’s near the 1.5-degree limit that countries agreed to at 2015 climate talks in Paris. Climate scientists say the atmospheric warming, mainly from human burning of fossil fuels, is causing ever more extreme and damaging weather including droughts, flooding and dangerous heat.
Climate Action Tracker does projections under several different scenarios, and in some cases, those are going up slightly.
“This is driven highly by China,” said Sofia Gonzales-Zuniga of Climate Analytics. Even though China’s fast-rising emissions are starting to plateau, they are peaking higher than anticipated, she said.
WATCH | COP29 climate conference begins as Shell wins appeal on cutting emissions:
COP29 climate conference begins as Shell wins appeal on cutting emissions
Duration1:59
The COP29 climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, got off to a sombre start as climate scientists warned the world is now in the ‘final countdown to limit global temperature rise.’ On the same day, oil giant Shell won its appeal against a 2021 ruling that would have forced it to radically reduce its carbon emissions by 2030.
Another upcoming factor not yet in the calculations is the U.S. elections. A Trump administration that rolls back the climate policies in the Inflation Reduction Act and carries out the conservative blueprint Project 2025 would add 0.04 C to warming projections, Gonzales-Zuniga said. That’s not much, but it could be more if other nations use it as an excuse to do less, she said.
“Fossil fuels and emissions are not peaking,” said Sherry Rehman, chair of climate and environment committee in Pakistan’s senate. After 29 years of climate talks, Rehman said countries are “still talking in bumper stickers.”
“We need a transformative solution. We need strong delivery,” Rehman said.
$1 trillion US needed yearly
The major battle in Baku is over how much rich nations will pay for developing countries to decarbonize their energy systems, cope with future harms of climate change and pay for damage from extreme weather.
A special independent group of experts commissioned by United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued its own estimate of costs and finances on Thursday, calling for a tripling of the old commitment. It said about $1 trillion US a year is needed by developing nations from all outside sources, not just government grants.
“Advanced economies need to demonstrate a credible commitment” to helping poor nations, the report said.
WATCH | COP29 held in the shadow of a re-elected Trump and a problematic host:
COP29 held in the shadow of a re-elected Trump and a problematic host
Duration7:33
Delegates at COP29, the annual UN climate conference, will have to navigate the scrutiny of another petro-state host in Azerbaijan and the expected retreat of U.S. climate policy under a re-elected Donald Trump. CBC’s international climate correspondent Susan Ormiston breaks down the hurdles standing between COP and meaningful climate action.
Negotiations on the needed grand total and structuring the overall amount have taken “a step back,” because a draft of just a few pages that was worked on for a year was rejected and the latest proposal with many options has more than 30 pages, said top European negotiator Veronika Bagi of Hungary. European Commission negotiator Jacob Werksman said there’s a “very significant gap” between what rich and poor nations propose.
German climate envoy Jennifer Morgan said “private investment has to be brought to the table” in order to fulfil developing countries needs. But Mariana Paoli of Christian Aid said any number that comes out of negotiations that’s not based in publicly-financed grants “will be meaningless.”
Relying on the private sector means climate cash will not be “needs-based, it will be profit-driven,” she said, adding that crises like the COVID-19 pandemic and bank bailouts prove that public funds are available.
“It’s about fairness, it’s about justice,” she said.
Getting climate cash is personal for many activists from vulnerable nations, like Sandra Leticia Guzman Luna, who is from Mexico and the director of the climate finance group for Latin America and the Caribbean. “We are observing the climate impacts causing a lot of costs, not only economic costs but also human losses,” she said.
Argentina pulls out of climate talks
Argentina withdrew from the climate talks on Wednesday on the orders of its president, climate skeptic Javier Milei. The Argentine government did not respond to requests from The Associated Press for comment.
Climate activists called the decision regrettable.
“It’s difficult to understand how a climate-vulnerable country like Argentina would cut itself from critical support,” said Anabella Rosemberg, an Argentina native who works as a senior adviser at Climate Action Network International.
A man holding a baby walks through a flooded street on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, March 21, 2024. Despite its vulnerability to climate change impacts, Argentina withdrew from the climate talks on Wednesday on the orders of its president, climate skeptic Javier Milei. (Rodrigo Abd/The Associated Press)
Also Wednesday, France’s environment minister, who was set to lead the delegation, pulled out of the talks after Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev called out France and the Netherlands for their colonial histories.
Agnes Pannier-Runacher called Aliyev’s remarks on France and Europe “unacceptable.” Speaking at the French Senate on Wednesday, Pannier-Runacher criticized Azerbaijan’s leader for using the fight against climate change “for a shameful personal agenda.”
“The direct attacks on our country, its institutions and its territories are unjustifiable,” she said.
COP29 negotiator Rafiyev declined to comment Thursday on Pannier-Runacher’s decision, but said “Azerbaijan has made sure we have inclusive process.”
“We have opened our door for everyone to come for constructive, critical discussions,” he said.
This article was written by Victor Swezey and was published in the Globe & Mail on November 13, 2024.
Canada is launching a $2-billion climate platform as it vows to remain committed to promoting financing for the countries most vulnerable to climate change at this year’s COP29 summit in Azerbaijan.
The public-private partnership, called GAIA, will devote 70 per cent of its funds to climate adaptation projects, with 25 per cent going to countries classified as “least developed” and “small island developing states,” Steven Guilbeault, the federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change, said Tuesday in Baku.
“It’s about resiliency, it’s about the economy and it’s about people,” Mr. Guilbeault said of the project while standing beside Seyni Nafo, co-ordinator of the African Adaptation Initiative. “We need to have an agreement here on finance so that we can develop more and more of these innovative products to help people in the Global South.”
The platform features investments from Mitsubishi Financial Group, the Green Climate Fund, the Global Environmental Facility and national development finance body FinDev Canada, Mr. Guilbeault said.
The minister arrived in Baku on Tuesday for the World Leaders Climate Action Summit, the first phase of COP29. The summit was attended by world leaders, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, but featured many notable absences, including the leaders of the United States and China and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The event also follows last week’s U.S. presidential election, which saw former president Donald Trump win with a platform that featured climate-change denial and promises to expand fossil-fuel production. Mr. Trump has said he again would pull the U.S. out of the 2015 Paris climate agreement, which sought to cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above the average preindustrial temperature. Mr. Trump started the process of withdrawing from the climate agreement in 2019 in his first term as president, but the Joe Biden administration rejoined it.
When asked if the election would affect Canada’s climate policy, Mr. Guilbeault said the likely shift in priorities under Mr. Trump “changes nothing for us.”
“We are as determined as we were to continue moving forward with climate action, both domestically and internationally,” he said.
Besides mobilizing funds for green transitions in the developing world, Canada’s other major goal at the conference is to push other countries to tighten their emissions caps when they announce new goals next year.
Yet even as Canada faces doubts over its ability to meet the goals it set for itself in 2021 at COP26 in Glasgow, Mr. Guilbeault said he is “not pressuring anyone.”
“I think we have a fair shot of meeting our 2030 targets,” he said, but added that “2030 is not the end of the story.”
In speeches Tuesday at the conference, world leaders highlighted the need for robust financing to help the most vulnerable countries transition away from fossil fuels and to weather the effects of climate change.
The negotiations centre on a “new collective quantified goal” for climate finance, which is meant to build on a US$100-billion annual pledge first made by industrialized countries in 2009.
“I urge countries to commit new finance to the fund. And to write cheques to match,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres. “We need new responses, and new sources, to meet the scale of need.”
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